Best Science Gifts for Kids

Let's Experiment!

Elementary-age kids love to ask questions, so why not stoke their curiosity with some stellar gifts? Help them piece together gadgets, solve puzzles and peer at magnified creatures with these cool gifts that will keep them entertained year-round.

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Credit: ThinkFun

Cat Crimes

It's time to solve brainteasers about Sassy, Ginger and Mr. Mittens with the Cat Crimes, Who's to Blame Logic Game. Players use critical reasoning and logical deduction skills as they solve the 40 increasingly difficult challenges about the furry friends. The kids will race to figure out the final order and placement of the cats around the dinner table. (Recommended ages: 8+)

IQ Builder

Kids will dive into the building materials provided by IQ Builder, a kit that empowers them to build all kinds of contraptions. With three instructional e-books for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners, kids will learn how to create simple shapes and patterns as well as large and complex models and structures. (Recommended ages: 3 to 10)

Grow 'n Glow Terrarium

Get your kid's green thumb started by having them grow a spectacular garden with chia and wheat grass seeds using the Creativity for Kids Grow 'n Glow Terrarium - Science Kit for Kids. Your little gardener can decorate, plant and water these plants as they learn about the plant life cycle in less than a week. (Recommended ages: 6+)

Electronic Smart House

Forget about conventional dollshouses. This 62-piece Electronic Smart House will help kids learn about how to construct and wire a miniature abode with all kinds of gadgets, including motion sensors, lights, trapdoors and elevators. An illustrated activity book will give your budding architect construction ideas as well as 20 projects to complete.

Soap Science Kit

Have your kids ever wondered how that bar of soap came to be? Now, they can get to the bottom of that mystery by melting and molding up to 10 soap bars from scratch. Each bar can be made unique with different combinations of molds, colors, fragrances, stickers and skin-safe glitter. The kit even comes with a book of experiments. (Recommended ages: 6+)

Bernoulli balloon

Just add sunlight to this 50-foot-long (15.2 meters) balloon so you and your little scientist can learn about buoyancy, convection, thermodynamics and the sun's power. The balloon is 29 inches (74 centimeters) in diameter and comes with 400 feet (122 m) of string (it flies as high as a rooftop!) and a guide book.

Microscope

Kids will get a kick out spying on tiny nuggets — including bacteria, fungi and cell tissues with this easy-to-use microscope. They can focus with 40x, 100x and 400x lenses to get the real scoop on the smaller details of this world. The kit comes with a dust cover, manual, AC/DC converter, three AA batteries, five blank and five prepared slides.

Dot Creativity Kit Robot

Meet Dot: a clever robot loaded with sensors that will entertain your kid for hours. Dot comes with 20 project cards with games including Duck, Duck, Goose and Hot Potato. Use accessories to make a mood lamp and code a personal room sentry to guard against intruders. Dot's games work with iOS, Android and Kindle mobile devices. (Recommended ages: 6+)

Rasperberry Pi

The Piper Computer Kit helps kids learn how to build, code and create. After they build their computer, they can play a puzzle-solving games and then build physical gadgets to hack the games. (Recommended ages: 7 to 12)

Virulence

This infectious card game invites players to take on the role of viruses. Each person competes to infect a host cell so that they can replicate their own viral components and gain points. This can also spark a philosophical discussion: Are viruses alive? (Recommended ages: 8+)

Klutz Lego Chain Reactions Craft Kit

Your little engineer can design and build 10 moving machines that can swing, pivot, roll, lift and drop with this Klutz kit. Kids can then connect, rearrange and experiment with the machines to create a chain reaction. An 80-page instruction book will guide them through the process. (Recommended ages: 8+)

AntWorks Illuminated

If your youngster wants a pet, why not get 60 of them? The illuminated AntWorks ant farm will teach them how to care for these six-legged arthropods, as well as learn how these insects tunnel and work together to survive. The ant farm comes with a removable LED light and power adaptor, nutrient gel, magnifying glass, zoom lens, ant catching and tunnel starting tool and an instruction booklet full of facts about ants.

The ants are not included (there's an order form in the booklet), but you can also buy the insects online in tubes. (Recommended ages: 3+)

Chem C2000

Light the fire under your little scientist — literally! The Chem C2000 comes with an alcohol burner for experiments that need heat. The burner is just one of the 50 tools that come with the kit, along with a 128-page manual, that will help budding researchers do a total of 250 experiments. (Recommended ages: 11+)

SmartLab Toys Squishy Human Body

What's inside the human body? This human model with removable squishy organs helps answer that question as it teaches kids about anatomy. The kit has a book that takes children on a tour of the human body and encourages them to dissect away with the included tweezers and forceps. (Recommended ages: 8-16)

It's Atomic! Periodic Table Brick Tower Stacking Game

This block game looks surprisingly like Jenga, but it has a special science twist: The elements of the periodic table and their abbreviations are printed on each block. Playing this game can help kids become more familiar with the different elements and their symbols — a real boon for whenever they start studying chemistry in school. (Recommended ages: 10+)

Puzzle Pod Junior

Do you want to give money or a gift card to a kid, but you think an envelope is too boring? The puzzle pod allows you to put cash or a gift card in the back, and then set a password with clues that the kid has to crack to open the puzzle and get the prize. This game will help the little sleuth practice logic and exercise their problem-solving skills. (Recommended ages: 8+)

Q-Ba-Maze 2.0: Big Box

Your kid might spend the whole afternoon constructing a giant 3D maze, tweaking it and then dropping handfuls of marbles into it. The Q-Ba-Maze comes with 72 colorful plastic cups that can be connected and rearranged into winding mazes. The child will also get 20 steel marbles and a design ideas booklet that will help him or her develop visual perception skills, strategic thinking and hand-eye coordination. (Recommended ages: 5+)

New Otamatone Touch-Sensitive Electronic Musical Instrument

This musical instrument may look like an alien music note, but don't underestimate how much fun a kid can have with it. It "sings" with a compelling monotone voice and can be adjusted based on where players place their fingers on the music note's stem. YouTube is awash with videos of people playing Otamatones to famous songs, such as "Take On Me" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's an activity that any musical kid would enjoy. (Recommended ages: 5+)

Set: The Family Game of Visual Perception

Gather 'round the table to play Set. It's a card game that lets players make a "set," or three-card combo with cards that have similar shapes, shadings, colors or numbers on them. The constant stream of cards will train kids to look for patterns in different ways to best their opponents. (Recommended ages: 10+)

Roller Coaster Challenge

Build an amusement park in the family room with this Roller Coaster Challenge. Players can build their own roller coasters by selecting one of the 40 challenge cards, which instruct you how to set it up. Then, you have to figure which missing pieces are needed. Celebrate your creation by sending a marble down the coaster, and watch it speed around loops and hurtle down the tracks. (Recommended ages: 6+)

As a senior writer for Live Science, Laura Geggel covers general science, including the environment, archaeology and amazing animals. She has written for The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site covering autism research. Laura grew up in Seattle and studied English literature and psychology at Washington University in St. Louis before completing her graduate degree in science writing at NYU. When not writing, you'll find Laura playing Ultimate Frisbee. Follow Laura on Google+.